Doug Wilson was once a fringe figure on the evangelical Right. Now he preaches at the Pentagon and his adherents are dotted throughout the Trump administration. My Lunch with the patriarch of America's growing Christian Nationalist movement, in this week's @ftweekend.com as.ft.com/r/a37925a9-9...

Christian nationalist pastor Doug Wilson: ‘I’m starting a fight’ ft.trib.al/vnitPOZ

A group pushing Republicans to restore foreign aid slashed by Doge is targeting key swing districts with a multimillion-dollar ad spree ahead of the midterms. “America is strongest when we help our farmers stop starvation,” runs one ad in Iowa. as.ft.com/r/05fec6f0-f...

Josh Hawley tells me: “I’m worried that the Senate’s behaving more like there’s a sign on the door that says ‘Property of Big Tech’”

Terrific reporting by @kayewiggins.ft.com, addressing a question that has been bugging me throughout Trump 2.0: What does the white-collar defence bar even do these days? as.ft.com/r/4b987ba4-1...

Amid growing anger on the left, Palantir hired two DC lobbyists with ties to the Democratic Party. One of them, Cristina Antelo, told the FT that Democrats angry with Trump “have misplaced that anger at a US corporation” whose software helps make ICE’s operations more precise. More in today’s FT:

One of Trump’s closest White House advisers has called for the US to “find the off-ramp” in its conflict with Iran. It's the first 𝘱𝘶𝘣𝘭𝘪𝘤 signal of discontent over the war from a senior figure in his administration. as.ft.com/r/5eb73ba7-c...

Farage misses out on Trump meeting as their relationship cools w/ @annasophiegross.bsky.social & @joemillerjr.ft.com www.ft.com/content/9391...

EXCLUSIVE with @georgehammond.bsky.social: The Trump admin has drawn up rules for civilian AI contracts that would require companies to allow “any lawful” use of their models. Comes amid Pentagon vs Anthropic. Similar rules are likely to follow for military contracts. as.ft.com/r/e240c02b-e...

Today @georgehammond.bsky.social and I explore how AI dollars 💵💵💵 are likely to dominate key races in the upcoming midterms as.ft.com/r/c5e49e9f-0...

The likes of Elon Musk, Sam Altman and Alex Karp will help train a crack squad of techies with a mission to overhaul the federal government, OPM chief Scott Kupor tells me:

"But across the US, citizens, clergy and elected officials in conservative communities are leading a grassroots rebellion against the rapid rollout of the technology. Political strategists fear this could wreck Republicans’ chance of maintaining their majority in Congress this November..."

I went to Missouri to report on the grassroots backlash to the AI revolution, which is gaining momentum by the day.

NEW: The White House is upping the ante in its war against state-led AI regulation - this time warning a Republican legislature to kill a safety bill it sees as burdensome to American companies. as.ft.com/r/3f8d92cc-3...

A story by the great @pickardje.bsky.social and yours truly from 2023 has become the fulcrum of a crisis that might end with the ousting of a British prime minister... www.ft.com/content/0723...

“Their policy was to kneecap the states and let Big Tech write the rules.” RDS indirectly blasts Trump's team, including David Sacks, for seeking to give the AI industry everything it wants. as.ft.com/r/9d5096fe-7...

Trump and his allies raised a record $429mn in donations last year, as tech billionaires and companies lobbying for policy changes helped build a war chest ahead of the midterm elections. rpt by @joemillerjr.ft.com Ian Hodgson and Paul Caruana Galizia www.ft.com/content/5038...

Trump has “a lot of money to potentially spend on a handful of competitive Senate and House races... or to make himself politically relevant after he leaves the White House."

Elon Musk continued to donate to the GOP, giving a further $5mn to the Senate Leadership Fund PAC in mid December, per filings. Definitely back in the Trump tent.

Coming up on @ms.now with Katy Tur to talk Trump pardons

Dozens of agents spent years bringing Juan Orlando Hernández to justice for flooding US cities with cocaine, only for Trump to pardon him with a social media post. They, and other US law enforcement officials, are fuming. More from @kayewiggins.ft.com, Stefania Palma and I.

All these people just willingly revealing they use Spotify.

What fresh hell? Why are viewers of UK coverage having to put up with Aussie scoring?!

The AI lobby lost 99-1 in the Senate this summer. Now it is back with a $100mn war chest and a new campaign for a ban on state-level regulation, which is already enraging Maga populists. Me in today's FT: on.ft.com/4prXzFH

“We have to understand that in 2025, that evil person . . . has an audience of several million people,” says Heritage Foundation boss Kevin Roberts of the Holocaust-denying Nick Fuentes. My piece on the mutiny within Maga on.ft.com/3WNZo3p

NEW: A little-known drone company backed by Donald Trump Jr has won its largest-ever contract from the Pentagon. on.ft.com/49iybgw

Here is what Elon Musk’s Grok tells users about our investigation. I’ll leave it to others to decide if this is an accurate summation.

Spent the last few weeks working on these two Trump investigations, alongside a crack FT team. First one on the $1bn crypto haul

How the Trump companies made $1bn from crypto on.ft.com/4olkLoi

*fewer

Maga vs AI: Trump’s Big Tech courtship risks a backlash on.ft.com/4niyITy

In a uniquely bad-tempered US Open, Tommy Paul has stood out for his grace and sportsmanship. I’m a fan.

TONIGHT: @joemillerjr.ft.com talks to @lawrenceodonnell.msnbc.com on The #LastWord at 10pm ET.

Sad to witness the decline of FT's Bracken House HQ, where the cricket is not being broadcast on one of the main screens.

NEW: Financier Don Wilson invested $100mn in the Trump family’s flagship bitcoin project just nine weeks after a probe into his crypto business was dropped by the administration. With @antoinegara.bsky.social and Harriet Agnew. on.ft.com/3HCKlVT

The deployment of the National Guard was “clearly done as an authoritarian show of strength”, says @ryanenos.bsky.social “There is no policy reason [why the admin] should be targeting places in LA as opposed to places in red states.” on.ft.com/4kyK7hf

Are Donald Trump and Elon Musk now enemies? @edwardluce.bsky.social on yesterday's contretemps, with a reply from the FT's broligarch correspondent, @joemillerjr.ft.com www.ft.com/content/17a4...

I swear I’m not making this up, @robarmstrong.bsky.social, but my Lyft driver in DC just now brought up the TACO trade, unprompted. Now THAT’S cut through.

TMTG confirms our reporting less than a day after calling the FT "dumb." ir.tmtgcorp.com/news-events/...

Some quotes are too good to cut on.ft.com/4jkssZ0

I started reading this thinking it was about users who *asked* about race and South Africa getting bogus responses. But no, Grok is - ASTONISHINGLY - providing responses on the topic to users who have asked entirely unrelated questions. WILD. By @mshannahmurphy.bsky.social and Cristina Criddle

by @joemillerjr.ft.com and me: what has Doge actually done?

What has Elon Musk’s Doge actually achieved? @joemillerjr.ft.com and @chriscook.news dissect the record here. Dominik Lett, an analyst at the free-market Cato Institute, argues: “Doge should not be seen as a very successful deficit reduction effort.” www.ft.com/content/0854...

on.ft.com/3GMTDhw India and Pakistan: a conflict in the hands of two religious strongmen. Modi and Munir are the topic of today’s @FT Big Read

One of the best arguments for free trade is that tariffs are actually very hard (and expensive) to enforce. Case in point: Chinese manufacturers are already fraudulently undervaluing cargo sent to US; CBP is struggling to keep up. More in today's @financialtimes.com on.ft.com/4iMqpwN

Isn't this something? Mid 17th Century Hebrew/Chinese prayer book, which belonged to the Jews of Kaifeng. mss.huc.edu/phpviewer/in...

JD Vance will visit a Nucor Steel plant in South Carolina in an attempt at "highlighting America's manufacturing renaissance during the first one hundred days of the Trump Administration." Here is that renaissance, in chart form.

Microphone used by Ed Murrow at the BBC to report on the Blitz for CBS, bringing WWII into Americans’ living rooms, and paving the way for US intervention.

"There's been some blowback for the time that I've been spending in government with the Department of Government Efficiency or Doge", says Elon Musk after Tesla's quarterly profits cratered.

Elon Musk has lambasted the architect of Donald Trump’s trade war in the most public display to date of a potential rift between the US president and the world’s richest man www.ft.com/content/a863...